Teaching Beyond the Curriculum
Abstract
Students at universities still receive academic tools to work theoretically and empirically in their discipline. For many, the time during their studies is a forming time – also for their own position and professional career. Particularly in social science subjects, the goal of a course of study is therefore not only to impart specialist knowledge, but also to sharpen employability and to develop global citizenship. Global citizenship is understood as “a framework designed to develop in students the ethics of social justice and their potential applicability, globally (Abdi and Shultz 2008; Dower 2003) […,] as a framework that offers learners critical tools to question their histories, context, and sociopolitical responsibilities in globalization (e.g., Peake 2008). (Aboagye and Dlamini 2021, p. 6) Therefore, the importance of building critical thinking is of enormous significance. The project presented here deals with this problem: Students on a bachelor’s level, who take the elective ‘Diversity Management’ were stimulate to reflect on and understand the relationship between the theoretical content of diversity management and what it has to do with their own lives and persons through guided reflection. The DBR project (Bakker 2019; Ejersbo et al. 2007) was conducted in a total of four cycles (WiSe 20 to SoSe 22) and offers insights into the use of various reflection materials as a tool for global citizenship education, as well as thoughts on the trust needed in student-teacher interaction during personal reflection. The seminar context of “Diversity Management at Universities” provides the perfect setting for this, as the theoretical content also revolved around the current lifeworld of students. Through the iterative approach in the DBR process, adjustments to the reflection materials could be made again and again, thus achieving the best possible outcome for the students’ reflective competence and engagement with global citizenship.
Christine Buchwald, M.A., is a peace and conflict scholar and gender specialist. She is currently completing a Master in Higher Education at the University of Hamburg and is a research assistant for didactics at the Faculty of Society and Economics at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, where she is responsible for establishing the Competence Center Innovative Teaching. She also serves teaching positions at various universities, including, since October 2019, at the University of Koblenz, where she regularly teaches on “Diversity Management at Universities”.